In an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine or the like, an exposure means is reciprocally moved along a document table by operation of a scanning motor, and the document table is subjected to exposure and scanning thereby to read an image on an original document, while it reciprocally moves. The image thus read is formed on a copying paper as an image forming medium. A pulse motor is used as the scanning motor.
The exposure means comprises, as its components, a carriage where an exposure lamp and a carriage on which the exposure lamp is mounted. The carriage is provided to be reciprocally movable along the document table, and is connected to the shaft of the scanning motor through a motion transmission mechanism such as a belt, wire, or the like. The carriage receives the motion force from the scanning motor and reciprocally moves.
An image forming apparatuses of this kind has a function of a mirror image print mode in which the image of an original document is printed as a mirror image which is reversed from the image of the original document. In printing of this mirror image print mode, an image read from an original document is reversed with use of a memory, and the reversed image which is a mirror image is printed on a copying paper.
That is, a memory for reversing the image and an image processing function for reversing the image are required to carry out printing in the mirror image print mode. An image forming apparatus of a low cost, which cannot equipped with the memory and image processing function, cannot carry out printing in the mirror image print mode.
The present invention has an object of providing an image forming apparatus and method of controlling the apparatus which are capable of printing an image of an original document as a reversed image thereof, i.e., a so-called mirror image, without requiring costs.
An image forming apparatus according to the present invention comprises: a document table on which an original document is set; read means for reading an image of the original document set on the document table, by optical main scanning on the original document set on the original table, in one direction, and sub-scanning in which the mains scanning is shifted in a direction perpendicular to the one direction; a printer section for executing main scanning and sub-scanning in synchronization with the main scanning and the sub-scanning performed by the read means, thereby to print the image read by the read means, onto an image forming medium; and control means for setting the direction of the sub-scanning of the read means to a normal direction, in case of a normal print mode in which the image of the original document set on the document table is printed on the image forming medium, with the image not reversed, and for setting the direction of the sub-scanning to a direction opposite to the normal direction, in case of a mirror image print mode in which the image of the original document set on the original table is printed on the image forming medium, with the image reversed.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.